There have been many changes in our lives since Jamie and I moved to Florida. We’ve made new friends, started new jobs, adopted plenty of new routines and habits. I’ve traveled more for work than ever before and have made more professional growth than I could imagine. Jamie joined an improv troupe and started volunteering with Big Brother, Big Sister. We’ve enjoyed playing volleyball, have hosted a ton of visiting friends and family, and are learning how to embrace the oppressive summer humidity.

All of those changes have kept us really busy, which is part of the reason I haven’t kept up this blog. But I’m happy to report that our house has undergone some significant changes, too. As of last month, we’ve painted every single one of the downstairs rooms.

And I’m finally sharing some before-and-after photos. Hooray!

As a reminder, we moved into our St. Pete house in March 2015. Henry joined us on the house closing, and quickly claimed this new space as his own.

Seventeen months later, he’s still happy as can be, especially now that we’ve added lots of comfortable furniture and rugs for him to lounge on.

So far, most of the changes we’ve made to this house are minor cosmetic ones. We’ve painted, hung art, installed some shelves and that’s about it. We do have bigger plans down the road — landscaping our jungle of a backyard, installing overhead lighting and building an outdoor pergola. Those are all projects we’ll need some professional help and guidance to get through, though.

For now, let’s celebrate the things we have done!

We’ll start with the living room. Here’s what it looked like before:

And here’s what it looks like today:

We painted the room in Glidden’s Pebble Gray. It’s a soothing color and good at bouncing around light. If you’ve read this blog before (or poke through previous posts), you’ll recognize our old furniture — we haven’t bought many new items for this house. We’ll eventually hang curtains on that lovely bay window, which is a house update I’m always weirdly reluctant to do.

Here’s another living room angle:

Yep. We still have that mammoth fireplace. It’s something I’d love to replace down the road. Right now, I’m kind of stuck with how to decorate around it. Overall, though, the view is vastly improved.

Let’s move on to the dining room.

This room is one of my favorites. We decided to paint it a dark, moody blue almost immediately when we moved in, with the bottom half of the wall white to balance things out. Valspar’s La Fonda Midnight was the winner. The color is perfect for a formal dining room, though the room can get pretty dark at night and on cloudy days.

Speaking of lighting challenges, getting rid of the oversized punch bowl-like chandelier was a major game-changer.

The new overhead light is from Cape Town, South Africa, and it’s crazy awesome. We traveled to South Africa for a work trip of mine last month and decided to get that light (which was not only super affordable, but also packed flat, making it possible to transport home) on a wonderful whim. I’m really glad we took the risk.

Oh, that light? We got it on a trip to South Africa. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d type.

You can’t see the light that well in these photos, I know. I was aiming for before-and-after goodness when I took these shots. Maybe I’ll share some additional angles in another 17 months when I get my act together and blog again? (I forgot what a time commitment blogging is!)

The previous view from the dining room to kitchen, with a peek of the mudroom in the background, is a study in terrible paint colors.

The new view is greatly improved, except for that GIANT SECURITY SYSTEM that is such an eyesore.

Here’s some really terrible Photoshop work to show how much better things will look once we get rid of that guy:

But really, isn’t that so much improved? What kind of craziness is ketchup red + streaky brown + forest green? I feel like we’ve done a big service to this house by choosing calmer paint colors.

That’s the only peek you’re getting of the kitchen for now. I promise that I’ll share the final photos of the downstairs rooms later this week and the wait will be worth it. I gotta stretch out these rare blog updates while I can!

Despite the rampant rumors, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Though, if I had, it would be a much better excuse for why I haven’t blogged in more than NINE months. It turns out that priorities and routines change when you move to a new state, start a new job, and make new friends. Surprising, huh?

Blogging has undoubtedly fallen to the wayside as a result. This post is in no way a promise that I’ll pick it back up, but I have realized lately how much I enjoy and rely on the blog archives. It’s nice to have something to look back on to remember what a particular room looked like, what dishes we served at past parties, or what paint color we eventually decided on after trying endless samples.

If all goes as planned, I will probably hopefully use this space for periodic updates — fewer and farther between, yes, but ones with some personal meaning and value.

And what’s more meaningful and valuable than yet another photo of Henry in a Santa costume?

The temperature in St. Pete has hovered around 80 degrees for most of the month — an unusually warm and decidedly unwelcome environment for holiday cheer — but that didn’t stop me from decking the halls and subjecting our sweet dog to that trusty old costume.

This was the first year we’ve ever had a real Christmas tree, and I’m now wondering why we settled on an artificial tree for so long. This delightfully fat tree is so much more handsome and smells wonderful.

We decorated our mantle, of course. This house is our first one with a working fireplace, which is ironic because we don’t have much use for it. For now, we just let candles do the trick.

(Sorry about the crap quality of these photos. House photos are always better in daylight! I am clearly rusty.)

We decorated the outside of our house with loads of twinkly lights.

Jamie even wrapped a few strands around the tiny palm trees in our front yard. The sight makes me so very happy.

Last but not least, we took our annual family Christmas photo, this time with the help of a friend behind the camera instead of wrestling with a self-timer and a pup’s waning attention. Much like the real Christmas tree, I can’t help but wonder now why we ever did things differently before.

(This is the eighth year we’ve taken a family holiday photo. You can see us age through the years here.)

So there you go, friends. We’ll never have snow in Florida, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our share of Christmas cheer.

Happy holidays! See you in 2016 — hopefully before another nine months pass.

Jamie, Henry and I are officially Florida homeowners! After five long weeks cramped in a hotel room, we couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

Due to some unexpected events, Henry joined us in the title office for our house closing. I’m pretty sure that means he owns a third of the new place — at least that’s what he’s claiming.

Just like with our beloved Cabbagetown house, I took some photos of our Florida home before we moved in any furniture. By this point, now that we’re on house number three, I think I’ve finally convinced Jamie that the effort of before-and-after photos is worth it.

There are lots of things we’re planning to do in this house (mostly painting, changing window coverings, and other decorative things like that), but overall we’re thrilled with it. It’s spacious yet cozy, gets wonderful natural light, and is in a super charming neighborhood. Also, we basically live in a jungle, so that’s cool.

I’ll save our full list of future house projects for another post.

For now, here’s a visual tour:

Exterior: Front

Living room

Dining room

Den

Kitchen

Mudroom

Stairwell

Upstairs bath

Master bedroom

Guest bedroom

Exterior: Back

As you can see, there are loads of projects ahead. Thankfully, there’s plenty of potential to work with, too.

As of right now, most of our belongings are still in boxes, but we’re steadily making progress. We’re currently picking out new paint colors (see you later, crazy kitchen walls) and have already installed a new washer and dryer.

Our first guests will be visiting in two weeks, which means we’ve got lots to get done between now and then. More photos to come soon!

As of today, we’re one day into our new life in St. Pete, and I’m two days away from my first day of work. The last month has been an absolute whirlwind — full of goodbyes and quality time with friends and family — and it was hard to keep up with anything beyond the logistics of moving, ending one job, and starting another.

Now, though, we’re getting settled into our new town and finally have some time to breathe. So far, we’ve spent that time alternating between feeling like we’re going to barf and like we’re going to burst into song and dance. That seems like a pretty normal response when you’ve completely uprooted your life, yeah?

Given that all of our friends and family are currently long distance, there’s more reason than ever to keep up this blog. I am so excited to share photos of the new house (we’re scheduled to close at the end of February) and the story behind it. Plus, it looks like there are plenty of exciting house projects ahead of us, so you can rest assured we’ll document along the way.

On October 25 (yes, this post is terribly overdue), several dozens of our friends gathered for a very important reason: to make fun of my husband. More specifically, we all celebrated Jamie’s 30th birthday by roasting him.

I’m usually a humble person, but not this time. The roast was a masterpiece. Every single person who got up in front of the crowd — there were five roasters, two videos, and the guest of honor — did a magnificent job, making everyone laugh and feel uncomfortable (in a good way). The food was excellent, too, although the caramel cake shaped like a roast pig was clearly the star of the show.

Most importantly, Jamie had an amazing time. He declared it one of the best nights of his life, which is pretty impressive considering he’s been alive 30 long years.

Since this is a blog about home design, I feel compelled to share all the details that made the party come together.

There were the tags for the food — all roasted, of course — complete with party hashtag:

And homemade sign:

We held the roast outdoors. Jamie sat in his “throne,” with some portraits nearby.

Our patio served well as a stage. The “Happa Birthday” sign, clearly a manufacturing mistake, was one we got from Target years before. It seemed perfect for this event.

The event was held at night, and the string lights lit everything up beautifully.

I didn’t take photos during the party (we used our camera to tape the roast) but thankfully others documented and dutifully posted their #JHG30 shots.

I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard.

Seriously, this post doesn’t do justice to how funny, memorable and magical the event truly was. I think it’s better to let the jokes speak for themselves. If you have an hour to spare and don’t mind NSFW content, then check out the video below.

I am officially halfway through my self-imposed 30 meals before 30 challenge. Considering that I could barely make a grilled cheese sandwich before this process began, this is an especially big milestone for me.

I wish I could say that I thoroughly enjoyed the process, but I didn’t. Pulling the neck and gizzards out of the carcass and spreading butter under the skin was just as disgusting as I anticipated. I know — learning to cook is probably supposed to make me feel more connectedto my food or something like that, but this was way too close for comfort.

I can confidently say that there’s no future for me in the world of cooking shows, unless people enjoy watching someone complain and gag the whole time. (On second thought, that sounds pretty entertaining.) Of course my culinarily talented husband teased me mercilessly as I squirmed through every step. So fun!

I was much more competent when it came to arranging our table. This was our first year hosting Thanksgiving for my family, and I was absolutely thrilled to gather everyone in our dining room. I was even more thrilled to discover that we owned everything to make a proper table setting happen.

Isn’t it lovely? I was pleased with how it all came together. My aunt sewed the table runner, which happily coordinated with our light-green napkins. The tumblers were a gift from our friend Julian from years ago; and the brown ribbon and candle votives date back to our 2008 wedding. Serendipity! I knew saving that ribbon would pay off some day.

Unfortunately, the timing of the meal wasn’t nearly as serendipitous. The turkey was more than an hour late, which meant we had a mad dash for heating up all of the sides once it was finally ready. Jamie and I chalked it up to being first-timers, and thankfully everyone was understanding.

The good news is the turkey was delicious! It was so moist and flavorful that I nearly forgot about the horror of preparing the bird. I definitely couldn’t have pulled it off without Jamie’s help and guidance, but I was proud all the same.

Now I’ve got 15 more meals to go before the end of April. What should I make next? (I don’t eat red meat, but would love your favorite seafood/poultry/vegetarian recipes!)

And, yeah, I’ll try to cut down on the pasta. Looking back at that list of meals, it was definitely my go-to option of choice. It tends to be a tiny bit simpler than turkey, that’s for sure.

p.s. Goodness, it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged! I am planning to share details on the party we hosted for Jamie’s 30th birthday soon. (Here’s a sneak peek.)